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Books > History > Theory & methods
Despite Adorno's famous dictum, the memory of the Shoah features prominently in the cultural legacy of the 20th century and beyond. It has led to a proliferation of works of representation and re-memorialization which have brought in their wake concerns about a 'holocaust industry' and banalization. This volume sheds fresh light on some of the issues, such as the question of silence and denial, of the formation of contemporary identities - German, East European, Jewish or Israeli, the consequences of the legacy of the Shoah for survivors and for the 'second generation,' and the political, ideological, and professional implications of Shoah historiography. One of the conclusions to be drawn from this volume is that the 'Auschwitz code,' invoked in relation to all 'unspeakable' catastrophes, has impoverished our vocabulary; it does not help us remember the Shoah and its victims, but rather erases that memory.
While most critical studies of interwar literary politics have focused on nationalism, Patrick Query makes a case that the idea of Europe intervenes in instances when the individual and the nation negotiate identity. He examines the ways interwar writers use three European ritual forms-verse drama, bullfighting, and Roman Catholic rite-to articulate ideas of European cultural identity. Within the growing discourse of globalization, Query argues, Europe presents a special, though often overlooked, case because it adds a mediating term between local and global. His book is divided into three sections: the first treats the verse dramas of T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and W.H. Auden; the second discusses the uses of the Spanish bullfight in works by D.H. Lawrence, Stephen Spender, Jack Lindsay, George Barker, Cecil Day Lewis, and others; and the third explores the cross-cultural impact of Catholic ritual in Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and David Jones. While all three ritual forms were frequently associated with the most conservative tendencies of the age, Query shows that each had a remarkable political flexibility in the hands of interwar writers concerned with the idea of Europe.
In the English-speaking world the Great War maintains a tenacious grip on the public imagination, and also continues to draw historians to an event which has been interpreted variously as a symbol of modernity, the midwife to the twentieth century and an agent of social change. Although much 'common knowledge' about the war and its aftermath has included myth, simplification and generalisation, this has often been accepted uncritically by popular and academic writers alike. While Britain may have suffered a surfeit of war books, many telling much the same story, there is far less written about the impact of the Great War in other combatant nations. Its history was long suppressed in both fascist Italy and the communist Soviet Union: only recently have historians of Russia begun to examine a conflict which killed, maimed and displaced so many millions. Even in France and Germany the experience of 1914-18 has often been overshadowed by the Second World War. The war's social history is now ripe for reassessment and revision. The essays in this volume incorporate a European perspective, engage with the historiography of the war, and consider how the primary textural, oral and pictorial evidence has been used - or abused. Subjects include the politics of shellshock, the impact of war on women, the plight of refugees, food distribution in Berlin and portrait photography, all of which illuminate key debates in war history.
The chapters in this volume celebrate the work of Pauline Stafford, highlighting the ways in which it has advanced research in the fields of both Anglo-Saxon history and the history of medieval women and gender. Ranging across the period, and over much of the old Carolingian world as well as Anglo-Saxon England, they deal with such questions as the nature of kingship and queenship, fatherhood, elite gender relations, the transmission of property, the participation of women in lordship, slavery and warfare, and the nature of assemblies. Gender and historiography presents the fruits of groundbreaking research, inspired by Pauline Stafford's own interests over a long and influential career.
First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Why were the Victorians so passionate about "History"? How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession - the "woman question"? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians' fascination with "history" and with the nature of "women." Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts - Daniel Deronda and Hegel's Philosophy of History; Henry Esmond and Macaulay's History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins' The Frozen Deep, and Mayhew's survey of "labour and the poor"; Villette, Patrick Fairburn's The Typology of Scripture and Ruskin's Modern Painters - she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian "man" as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of "women" as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosby's analysis raises a crucial question for today's feminists - how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century "history"? The book was first published in 1991.
The Carolingian period (c. 750-900) has traditionally been described as one of ‘reform’ or ‘renaissance’, where cultural and intellectual changes were imposed from above in a programme of correctio. This view leans heavily on prescriptive texts issued by kings and their entourages, foregrounding royal initiative and the cultural products of a small intellectual elite. However, attention to understudied texts and manuscripts of the period reveals a vibrant striving for moral improvement and positive change at all levels of society. This expressed itself in a variety of ways for different individuals and communities, whose personal relationships could be just as influential as top-down prescription. The often anonymous creators and copyists in a huge range of centres emerge as active participants in shaping and re-shaping the ideals of their world. A much more dynamic picture of Carolingian culture emerges when we widen our perspective to include sources from beyond royal circles and intellectual elites. This book reveals that the Carolingian age did not witness a coherent programme of reform, nor one distinct to this period and dependent exclusively on the strength of royal power. Rather, it formed a particularly intense, well-funded and creative chapter in the much longer history of moral improvement for the sake of collective salvation. -- .
Fully updated and carefully revised, this new 2nd edition of History by Numbers stands alone as the only textbook on quantitative methods suitable for students of history. Even the numerically challenged will find inspiration. Taking a problem-solving approach and using authentic historical data, it describes each method in turn, including its origin, purpose, usefulness and associated pitfalls. The problems are developed gradually and with narrative skill, allowing readers to experience the moment of discovery for each of the interpretative outcomes. Quantitative methods are essential for the modern historian, and this lively and accessible text will prove an invaluable guide for anyone entering the discipline.
With its succinct analysis of the overriding issues and detailed case-studies based on the latest archaeological research, this social and economic study of Roman Imperial frontiers is essential reading. Too often the frontier has been represented as a simple linear boundary. The reality, argues Dr Elton, was rather a fuzzy set of interlocking zones - political, military, judicial and financial. After discussion of frontier theory and types of frontier, the author analyses the acquisition of an empire and the ways in which it was ruled. He addresses the vexed question of how to define the edges of provinces, and covers the relationship with allied kingdoms. Regional variation and different rates of change are seen as significant - as is illustrated by Civilis' revolt on the Rhine in AD 69. He uses another case-study - Dura-Europos - to exemplify the role of the army on the frontier, especially its relations with the population on both sides of the border. The central importance of trade is highlighted by special consideration of Palmyra.
The European view on history was shaken to its foundations when missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discovered that Chinese history was older than European and Biblical history. With an analysis of the Chinese, Manchu and European sources on ancient Chinese history, this essay proposes an early case of "intercultural historiography," in which historical texts of different cultures are interwoven. It focusses on the ways Chinese and European authors interpreted stories about marvellous births by the concubines of Emperor Ku. These stories have been the object of a wide variety of interpretations in Chinese texts, each of them representing a different historical genre. They are excellent case-studies to illustrate how the Chinese hermeneutic strategies shaped the diversity of interpretations given by Europeans.
What is history - a question historians have been asking themselves time and again. Does "history" as an academic discipline, as it has evolved in the West over the centuries, represent a specific mode of historical thinking that can bedefined in contrast to other forms of historical consciousness? In this volume, Peter Burke, a prominent "Western" historian, offers ten hypotheses that attempt to constitute specifically "Western Historical Thinking." Scholars from Asia and Africa comment on his position in the light of their own ideas of the sense and meaning of historical thinking. The volume is rounded off by Peter Burke's comments on the questions and issues raised by the authors and his suggestions for the way forward towards a common ground for intercultural communication.
We may yet find a precise use for the notoriously elusive category 'postcolonial', but only on the condition that we abandon its usual associations with plurality, fragmentation, particularity and resistance. This book argues that the category is best used to describe an ultimately singular configuration. A singularity is something that generates the medium of its own existence, in the eventual absence of external criteria and other existences. Like other singularities - pertinent comparisons include aspects of Buddhism and Islam, as well as concepts drawn from the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou - what is distinctive about a postcolonial discourse or literature is its abstraction from the domain of relationality. Here, Hallward offers a new conceptual distinction between singular and specific modes of differentiation, which should prove influential in a range of discourses. -- .
This laudable work offers a study, translation and partial edition
of one of the most important early Mamluk sources and its author.
In addition to the work's contribution to Mamluk history, it also
makes a significant contribution towards the ultimate goal of
having the key texts of early Mamluk historiography accessible to
scholars.
"Past Minds is an interesting and ambitious effort to integrate historical thinking with evolutionary and anthropological thinking." - Anthropology Review Database How do historians understand the minds, motivations, intentions of historical agents? What might evolutionary and cognitive theorizing contribute to this work? What is the relation between natural and cultural history? Historians have been intrigued by such questions ever since publication in 1859 of Darwins The Origin of Species, itself the historicization of biology. This interest reemerged in the latter part of the twentieth century among a number of biologists, philosophers and historians, reinforced by the new interdisciplinary finding of cognitive scientists about the universal capacities of and constraints upon human minds. The studies in this volume, primarily by historians of religion, continue this discussion by focusing on historical examples of ancient religions as well as on the theoretical promises and problems relevant to that study.
"Anglo-Norman Studies" has established itself as one of the leading annuals in the field and this index aims to simplify access to the first decade of scholarhip produced by the Battle Conference. Primarily an index of persons and places, it also includes wider subject entries. Entries for persons are cross-referenced by titles and offices, so that a succession of holders of a bishopric or an earldom can be quickly traced.
This is a book about real time in economics, a dimension increasingly unused by the edge of the profession. This, it is argued, has serious implications for economics' role as the premier policy-advising source for national governments and international organizations. It is also a book about the great waves of economic change that economists have failed even to identify, let alone analyze. This failure has created an intellectual vacuum that natural scientists are now only attempting to fill. It is a book, therefore, that challenges economics to put its house in order before it is engulfed by this rising tide. But, the question is, will economics have time? By the author of "Depression and Recovery: Western Australia 1929-1939", "Exploring Southeast Asia's Economic Past" and "Domesday Economy: A New Approach to Anglo-Norman History".
Although historiography is a frequently used term, its content is far from unequivocal. For the purposes of this bibliography, Attila Pok defines modern historiography as the history of historical science as it was established at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Thus, this bibliography includes works that discuss the development of historical science since that time to 1990. Its aim is to provide access to the most important works on nineteenth- and twentieth-century historiography. The titles are arranged geographically. Following a section of general titles, sections are devoted to Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. Within each section, chapters cover individual countries. The volume also includes author and subject indexes.
Essays on how history's victors distort and suppress the documentary record in order to perpetuate their power and privilege, and how historians are influenced by the professional and class environment in which they work. "Michael Parenti, always provocative and eloquent, gives us a lively as well as valuable critique of orthodoxy posing as 'history.'"--Howard Zinn "Solid if surely controversial stuff."--"Kirkus" Table of Contents Prologue: Against the Mainstream
This edited volume encompasses a range of themes and approaches relevant to the field of South African history today, as viewed from the perspective of practicing historians at the cutting edge of research in the discipline. The collection features the historians offering critical reflection on the theoretical and methodological aspects of their work. This involves them both looking back at the inherited historiographical tradition in the respective areas of their research, while also pointing forwards to possible future directions for scholarly engagement. -- .
The Ukraine's emergence as an independent state in 1991 was not accompanied by violence due, it may be argued, to the weak national consciousness of most of its citizens. In part, this was the legacy of an historiography imposed by its rulers, who played down or ignored the Soviet Union's diversity and the past tensions among its peoples so as to legitimize a supranational "Soviet" identity.;The official history of the multinational state ruled from St Petersburg and Moscow bowdlerized the past and eroded the collective memory of each constituent nationality.;The author compares Soviet and Polish accounts of the Ukraine's past, examines how "national history" was written and how its interpretation changed in each country. This book provides an account of how historical writing was used to build and destroy nations and states, and is particularly relevant today in the light of recent events in Eastern Europe. By the author of "National History as Cultural Process".
History is everywhere in the media. Television viewers can spend
every evening watching a different historian expound upon Empire,
Witchcraft, the Civil War or Royal Mistresses or go to the cinema
and watch reconstructions of the Second World War, American Civil
War or Imperial China. Even current affairs reporting on
television, radio or in newspapers implicitly or explicitly
includes historical explanations. This book examines the boom in
history in television and film, newspapers and radio and the
constraints and opportunities it offers. Leading historians and
high profile broadcasters, such as Melvyn Bragg, Simon Schama,
Tristram Hunt, Ian Kershaw and David Puttnam, drawn on their
personal experiences to explore the problems and highlights of
representing history in the media.
This collection is a notable example of how the cultural history of
the middle ages can be written in terms that satisfy both the
historian and the literary scholar. John Benton's knowledge of the
personnel, structure and finance of medieval courts complemented
his understanding of the literature they produced.
In this reissued collection of essays, first published in 1985, Paul Q. Hirst assesses the limits of the Marxist theory of history in its various versions. It begins with an extended critical discussion of Perry Anderson and Edward Thompson, and includes chapters on G.A Cohena (TM)s attempt to re-state the Marxist theory of history in terms compatible with analytic philosophy, on R.G. Collingwooda (TM)s theory of history, on Andersona (TM)s work on Absolutism, on Thompsona (TM)s Poverty of Theory, and on the contemporary politics of democratic socialism.
What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as "humanities" has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent. Herman Paul leads a stellar line-up of esteemed and early-career scholars to provide an overview of the themes, questions and methods that are central to current research on the history of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century humanities. This exciting addition to the successful Writing History series will draw from a wide range of case-studies from diverse fields, as classical philology, art history, and Biblical studies, to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the field. In doing so, this ground-breaking book challenges the rigid distinctions between disciplines and show the variety of prisms through which historians of the humanities study the past.
This book provides a critical examination of over 300 historical works about the French Revolution, published in Europe (in particular in France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Russia) as well as in the United States between 1789 and 1989. It also goes on to examine recent trends in French Revolution historiography and consider where histories of this landmark event may go in the future. By emphasizing the elements which have been valued or hidden, exalted or silenced, Historicizing the French Revolution shows how reflections on 1789 are always fundamentally tied to the times in which they are formulated. Antonino De Francesco looks at the ways in which these historical accounts can be seen to support and, at times, contrast with the formation of political modernity - both in national and international contexts - as it has taken shape in the hundreds of years that have followed this key moment in world history. |
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